Trapped in the sound of disputes

Vienna/Salzburg. Surely, the two most famous Austrian musical exports - Mozart and the singing Trapp family - were looking down on Salzburg on the weekend. There, politicians and leading figures of the art world met to discuss the "Sound of Europe".

It was to be a talk on common values (such as music) and future trends but artists say it was all just hot air; politicians could not agree on whether or not Europe really was in a crisis but the president of the EU-commission, José Manuel Barroso, said it was a "wonderful groupand music therapy".

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Quota or homeland?

More dissonance was brought to Salzburg by the EUs commissioner for education, Jan Figel. He dashed hopes that the dispute on foreigners at Austrian universities could be solved by going back to the old admission restrictions, i.e. every student has to have a place at a university in his homeland.

Figel also said that "the EU is no big fan of quotas" as the second option for a solution might have been to allow a certain number of foreigners to study in Austria. Despite his criticism, the SPÖ sticks to this position and demands a quota of 20 percent.